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Birefringence: calculation of refracted ray paths in biaxial crystals

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Abstract

The phenomenon of birefringence may be observed when light arrives at an anisotropic crystal surface and refracts through it, causing the incident light ray to split into two rays; these become polarized in mutually orthogonal directions, and two images are formed. The principal goal of this paper is the study of the directional issues involved in the behavior of light when refracting through a homogeneous, non-participating medium, including both isotropic and anisotropic media (uniaxial and, for the first time, biaxial). The paper focuses on formulating and solving the non-linear algebraic system that is obtained when the refraction process is simulated using the geometric model of Huygens. The main contribution focuses on the case of biaxial media. In the case of uniaxial media, we rely on symbolic calculus techniques to formulate and solve the problem.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad de Zaragoza, María de Luna, 1, 50018, Zaragoza, Spain

    Pedro Latorre, Francisco J. Seron & Diego Gutierrez

Authors
  1. Pedro Latorre
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  2. Francisco J. Seron
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  3. Diego Gutierrez
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pedro Latorre.

Additional information

This research has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (project TIN2007-63025) and the Aragón Government (projects OTRI 2009/0411 and CTPP05/09).

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Latorre, P., Seron, F.J. & Gutierrez, D. Birefringence: calculation of refracted ray paths in biaxial crystals. Vis Comput 28, 341–356 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0619-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-011-0619-2

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